UNHCE Information Technology & Distance Education Blog

As you have probably all noticed, our offices have recently been inundated by a number of email viruses. For this reason, it is extremely important that you keep your virus definitions current, to help catch the new variants of these viruses.

However, just having anti-virus software and keeping it up to date is not sufficient to prevent infection. You, the user, have a positive responsibility to not open any suspicious attachments, even if they are not detected as a virus or come from a familiar source. Most of the current viruses use the address book from the infected computer for both the To: and From: addresses in the email. That means that the email will appear to be coming from someone you know, and also that you may receive bounced messages, saying that you sent out a virus.

What should you do? Read the message. Does it sound like a message that the "sender" would compose? Does the file name look strange? Are you expecting a file from that particular sender?

Most of the automated virus messages are general in nature and often contain misspellings and poor grammar. If there is any doubt, call the sender and ask if they send you the attachment. Err on the side of caution, as once you're infected, your computer starts sending out email to try to dupe other people in your address book.